Original Stories Fan Fiction / Horror Fan Fiction ❯ Angel of the Nightmare: The Mountain ❯ Begin Acting ( Chapter 1 )

 

Chapter 1: Begin Acting

 

A man sat behind his desk looking over files and files worth of information on the topography of the nearby mountains. This man was Captain Kazuki Ferret of the Blackwater Police Department's branch of the international counter terror group “Fox-Ops”, being privately owned and operated it attracted a lot of guys who wanted more flexibility with the rules then normal police work. Fox-Ops itself was a union of the best killers not behind bars and some of the most specialized individuals in the world. Fox-Ops boasted the greatest range of talents and member backgrounds in the world, making it an invaluable resource to law enforcement and even world militaries in the growing war on terror and the continuing war on international crimes like the slave, drug and arms trade. Fox-Ops units were divided up into three different teams; Alpha, Beta and Gamma and usually consisted of around twelve members per team for a unit size of thirty-six men and women. Their duties with police departments usually varied depending on member specialization but they were usually like a second more elite SWAT team, but they could also work like a profiling unit or whatever really.

 

Kazuki himself was a small arms expert, he was an American of mostly Irish and German descent; he stood at five feet seven inches tall with a medium build and long greasy black hair. He was originally a Narcotics Detective in Seattle before joining Fox-Ops his skills in disguise and role playing often proved vital in his work. He was clean shaven, lean and usually dressed gothic because he liked the color black and he liked the overall style of the `Gothic' subculture. His long hair had shortened bangs so they hung loosely down in his face even when he wore it in a pony-tail; his face itself was soft and almost girlish in appearance. Kazuki was only twenty seven years old but he'd been in police work since he graduated from the police academy six years ago. He had a degree in criminal justice and others in fine and performance arts from a state university that combined with his fierce devotion to his work fast tracked him to detective after only two years in a black and white. His experience in the theater allowed him to easily role-play in undercover work. Kazuki was headhunted by Fox-Ops a little over a year ago and he'd been working his way through the ranks ever since and was currently the youngest Alpha team Captain in all of Fox-Ops.

 

Kazuki was however at heart a gun guy; he owned a rather large collection of firearms and was a firm believer in the “Guns are tools in a tool box; each gun does certain jobs better then others” idea. He had favorites sure, but he knew their short comings as well. He was also an avid hunter and competition shooter, his work and how he often wrote papers about police work and did firearms reviews in to what in the gun world amounted to scholarly research papers meant that he was one of the foremost authorities in the world on firearms in practical urban combat and applications to police work. As a result he was often called on by gun companies to be a product tester and his yea or nay meant a lot to some companies, and even to US government agencies. He'd recently gotten to test the new Barrett 6.8 assault rifle; he found it to be superior to the AR15 it was meant to replace, but inferior in close combat to the AK47 but a vastly greater combat firearm then the aged AR15 and M16. Kazuki was most proud of the fact that the army soldiers themselves valued his insights; they said he was like one of them; but protecting the homeland. Kazuki's family was one with a long history of military service tracing all the way to William of Normandy.

 

Kazuki, aside from being an expert in firearms and an excellent actor was mostly inapt at everything else; his clothes were usually dirty, his house unclean, lawn unkempt, hair a mess. He lived alone, except for his cat and fish at least. Kazuki had severe anti-social tendencies that made making friends hard, the only human friends he had were his team mates; Andrew Jenkins, Grant Neiman and Auston Angst. They'd go fishing or hit a bar on their days off, during the Super Bowl Grant always had a huge party at his house that Kazuki would always go to, despite not liking football. When he was lonely he'd go and hang with Jenkins and his wife Elizabeth or Liz as she liked to be called.

 

“Oh man,” Kazuki said to himself, his voice was deep and strong but un-forceful in tone. He was reading an article from the Blackwater Gazette about how three of the missing hikers had been found dead two days early and three were still missing. “Well tomorrow it's the Fox's turn to try and get these guys.”

 

Kazuki looked over at the rifles propped up against the desk next to him; a Springfield armory M14 7.62NATO battle rifle and a Steyr AUG 5.56NATO assault rifle. He couldn't decide which one would be better to take along, he was going to be one of three guys with long guns and if he knew Joey he'd have his Ithica `Feather-light' 12 gauge shotgun; Kazuki decided on the AUG. He opened up a box of hand loaded 60-grain V-max rounds for it and started to load up magazines. In all truth he was a bigger fan of the Kalashnikov series of firearms, particularly the Yugoslavian Zastava M70 he had; plus he hand loaded 7.62soviet rounds using 110 grain V-max rounds for his AK's; the .308 slug down the .311 barrel didn't help the gun's accuracy much but when they hit they were sure horror show. Besides the AUG he'd have a Colt 1911a1 “Dragon” .45ACP loaded with 250-grain jacketed hollow points; he'd bought it at a gun show in '04 because of the intricate Dragon etched on the slide. It was a really nice gun, if a bit expansive and a little showy with its chrome finish but he found it brought him good luck. An AUG and a Colt .45 wasn't a load out to laugh at; both were excellent firearms and his skill had brought him many trophies and he'd even won a few national titles.

 

In his mind Kazuki went over the particulars of the case as he loaded up magazines for the AUG and the Colt. Tomorrow at 0900 I'm leading the search and rescue mission into the mountains; I'm bringing Andrew Jenkins, Joey Vantwoshi, Adam Parker, Auston Angst, Corey Lastch, Grant Neiman, Rebecca Soho, Sam Erskin and Scott Romulus with me. We are searching for three missing persons; Claire Osaka, a Washington State university student, her friend Karl Krissvarglagargen a recent immigrant from Yugoslavia and Evan Sandford who disappeared while hunting in the area. Truth be told I don't expect to find much out there, worse case would be a crazy-mountain guy with a hunting rifle who's been hunting people for about four months now. Although the main holes in that theory are that we'd have seen an escalation to this behavior and the victims we found were mauled and there were no visible gunshot wounds on them. Could be wild animals, but I doubt that to. To be that brutal and to attack large groups of people wouldn't be logical for any predators I know of to do.

 

Kazuki decided to also bring his Remington 700 7mm Magnum hunting rifle along in case the extra punch would be needed. Kazuki owned over one hundred firearms of every make, model and country of origin; he had guns from at least fifty different countries in his gun safes and cabinets. Kazuki often wondered why people didn't like guns; he'd never managed to understand the amount of ire people project towards them, to him it always seemed foolish to blame an inanimate object for actions it can't control. Plus some guns were of great historical and sentimental value, Kazuki often hustled the gun melts for try and save historic and rare firearms; he scored two Lugers, an AMT Auto-mag, a W2000, a P90, tons of Colt 1911's and some Taurus's that way; most of which he sold and bought other guns with the profit. Pausing Kazuki opened a drawer on his desk; inside was a snub-nosed .38 revolver and an ankle holster.

 

“Been a while since I carried you…” Kazuki said with a tone like he was being reacquainted with an old friend as he picked up the revolver, “About a year me thinks, the last time was back in Seattle during an undercover operation.”

 

Kazuki laid all three firearms out on his desk, and began his bizarre pre-mission ritual; a kind of pep talk if you will between him and his guns; he spoke to them like he spoke to his men.

 

“Okay boys, tomorrow we're going into the field; on a rescue mission.” Kazuki scanned his weapons with his eyes like he would a crowd during a speech, “I have a bad feeling about the whole thing, and I'm not too sure about what might happen. I'm trusting you three with my life, you've never let me down before and I've always had faith in you, just have faith in me and we'll get out to fight another day.”

 

Kazuki stared at the weapons as if waiting for questions or maybe answers. Kazuki didn't consider himself crazy for `talking' with his guns, it was really more to help reinforce his own confidence and when he used to get stage freight back in college he started practicing using his guns as an `audience'; his first full performance was technically witnessed by an old German Mauser, a Mossberg 500 shotgun, a Smith and Wesson model 29 revolver and a Romanian AK47 clone in his little apartment in Seattle. And when he worked undercover he was sometimes alone and couldn't talk to his family or to any of his few friends, so he talked to the only `friend' he had to talk to; his Smith and Wesson .38 snub-nose revolver. He knew a lot of people might find that strange but it really helped him through the roughest times of his life, and as surprising as it may seem, kept him sane enough to do his job.

 

Kazuki stepped out of his cramped office and looked around his house; he lived in a medium sized two-bedroom (one bedroom was used as his office) one story house in the suburbs outside of Blackwater's city limits. Blackwater itself was a medium sized town nestled snug against a mountain range near the Canadian border. Blackwater had a lot of problems, the automotive factory in town had just closed down and the laid off workers were starting to turn to crime to feed themselves. Luckily for the city a major international corporation called “Hexagontial Corporation” or “Hex-Corp” had many factories, research labs, and even a training center in town so not too many of the people had been laid off plus, come winter the hunting season would open up and then the hunters would come through town wanting to get out on the prime hunting lands found in the mountains. But the recent increase in violent crime and the brutal mauling and disappearance of three people were greatly disturbing; while this never surprised Kazuki since Blackwater was rapidly growing into a large city which meant more crime. But even to the dispassionate Kazuki, the maulings and disappearances were disturbing and hit close to home as he often hunted in those mountains during deer season.

 

Kazuki stepped out onto his backyard lawn and looked up at the dark mountain range to the north of his home, they seemed to be foreboding. Kazuki felt chills run up and down his spine; he knew to trust his gut. Some nagging voice was telling him that something was wrong about the next day's mission.

 

“There's a chill in the air, a deep rustling in my bones. My heart quivers in my chest, I feel as though I'm looking into my own doom as I stand here looking towards those once peaceful and safe hills.” Kazuki said aloud to the sky and clasped his hands in a prayer-like position as he spoke, “Oh, Goddess of heaven and Earth guide me, your loving fox through this great trial before him, lend me your strength to do the work of peace I must do; give me the strength to face the fallen angels and send them to your mercy for you. And I ask of you in return, to grant me your motherly protection and find it in your ever loving heart to forgive those who sin. I also ask for you to forgive me of my own sins of which I have sinned for thee.”

 

Kazuki thought long and hard about his life and experiences, he also realized something; he knew Claire Osaka. She'd been Juror number four in the trail of the Rios brothers a year and a half ago, the case that Kazuki had gone undercover for the longest time for, also his last case with the Seattle police. The end bust went bad in that case and most of the gang members had been killed and Kazuki was one of the officers who'd been tagged with a `questionable Officer involved Shooting' when he'd popped Victor Rios in the back with his .38; he'd been cleared but the defense tried to paint Kazuki as an anti-social loose cannon with more guns then God just looking to kill `criminals' and force African-American males to sell him drugs. The jury saw right through the tactic after Kazuki's testimony and once Kazuki had rattled off all the offenses he'd seen the Rios boys do before he'd even gotten in contact with them, the case was closed; Victor Rios got life without parole and Kazuki joined Fox-Ops.

 

Kazuki went to sleep and he dreamed about monsters, dark and looming figures with formless bodies; these monsters were eating his men in his dreams. Kazuki was religious in the sense that he had his own religion and firm spiritual beliefs; he was what you'd call `superstitious' about how he looked at life. Kazuki believed in ghosts, a Goddess (who was a fox-humanoid creature), an afterlife, prophetic dreams, curses and the like. Silly, yes but he believed it and he lived that way. And when he has a bunch of nightmares before a mission, something always went wrong the next day. He could only press forward, and hope he had enough bullets to fight his way out.